Former world super middleweight champion and now light heavyweight cotender Callum Smith has his sights set on a big night at his beloved Anfield, the home of Liverpool FC.
Smith is in Manchester this weekend supporting his brother Liam, who takes on Chris Eubank Jr in a domestic grudge match live on DAZN in some regions (click here for more information).
But Smith has plans of his own in 2023, with his sights set on a world title shot at 175lbs, and is looking to face the winner of next week's IBF, WBO and WBC world light heavyweight title fight between Artur Beterbiev and Anthony Yarde.
"I’m in training and hoping to get a date finalised for March, I’m hoping to get it done next week. I’m due to fight the winner of Beterbiev and Yarde. That’s likely to come in August and I don’t want to sit out until the biggest fight of my career, I want to stay active. It’s risky but if I want to become world champion then I should be able to beat anyone else in the meantime," Smith told Boxxer.
"Beterbiev is obviously the favourite over Yarde, unless he shows signs of age, he is definitely the favourite. They’re both big punchers, but you’d have to go Beterbiew on what we’ve seen. I'd fight the winner at back end of the summer hopefully as Beterbiew does Ramadan.
"Beterbiev is coming to London to fight Yarde, so maybe he’ll come to Liverpool to fight me. I’m happy to travel to America, I’ve boxed there many times before."
But while Smith is happy to go to America if an opportunity arises to become a two-weight world champion, his dream scenario is to bring world championship boxing to Anfield, but that maybe easier said than done.
"Hopefully Anfield happens but it’s not as straightforward as people think, you need the right opponent, time of year, they’re doing the stand up so that takes away some of the dates in the summer, so it’s all got to be perfect," Smith explained.
"Liam and Eubank would have been great there but it’s all about timing. It would be a dream come true, but we’ll have to wait and see."